Single speed

Sunday: My first time on the Single Speed bike since Easter. I was reluctant initially to go out on it as it had been a while and I knew I would find it hard work. But I had forgotten how much fun it is to ride and how simple just to pedal, not to have to worry about gears and to know I couldn’t wimp out and change down to a granny gear on the hills. It was tiring and my back was very sore on the outward leg – probably because the set-up is not quite the same as on my summer bike. I had to stop three times to stretch my back but it was fine on the return journey. It was just Alan and myself and I hid behind him, out of what was quite a strong gusty wind, for the whole trip. Because my back was sore we made an unscheduled stop for coffee at the Angel Cafe in Diss and then, with my back all nicely stretched out, did the 10 miles to Goodies for their all-day breakfast.

There was toast as well!

Very tasty it was too. The trip back from Goodies is less than 20 miles and we had the wind behind us the whole way so it was a swift return which was just as well considering my legs were tired and the breakfast was sitting rather heavily in my stomach!
(54.8 miles at an ave speed of 16.4 mph, ave HR 139bpm.)

Monday: Norwich Road Runners session – hills (or “pimples” as Wendy calls them) with Wendy. This was just what I needed as I knew I couldn’t get to the efforts session on Tuesday. We jogged along to the roundabout on Woodcock Road and then did 1 minute efforts up the hill, with 2 minute recovery jogs back down. The idea was that your sixth effort is as good as your first, so you have to remember where you got to on the first one and aim for that point on the next five efforts. Obviously it would be easy to cheat and make very little effort on the first so that the subsequent ones wouldn’t be challenging but I don’t think any of us did that. We’d only be cheating ourselves after all! These effort sessions are always strangely fun – hard work but you feel really good when you have done them and hills are something I need to focus on as I can’t keep registering only for races that are flat as a pancake.
(3.6 miles at ave 10:49 min/mile, ave HR 131 bpm – forgot to use the lap button again to get more meaningful pace and HR data – silly me!)

Thursday: Norwich Road Runners Evening run. It was a nice evening for a run and still remarkably warm for the time of year. I ran with Linda, Sophie and a new lady, Rachel and we decided to do the short route. We chatted the whole way round and other than the final hill up to Club, I was feeling pretty good. It would probably be a good idea for me to try and do the 6 mile option from time to time.
(4.4 miles at ave 9:51 min/mile, ave HR 144 bpm.)